1996 – the 18-year-old SunLi is on the way to one of the most prestigious universities in BeiJing to begin her studies there. The train needs 33 hours to take her from home to her destination which is 1，500 kilometres away. During the seven years that she studies in BeiJing， the travel time gradually shortens from 33 to 27 hours， then to 22， and finally to 13； today it will be even less， and in a few years high-speed trains will serve this route， too， and shorten the trip to between five and six hours. Arriving in BeiJing， she moves into a student residence， where her father had already lived 25 years ago， he was then of course in the men’s wing， not with the female students. Very little has changed since then， China is still not out of stagnation， the policy of opening has just begun. Nobody knows what will be the results.
There is a single phone down in the entrance hall， a harridan who runs the house makes sure that no young men sneak into the women’s wing， the young female students are dwelling six by six in one room each， they sleep in three bunk beds. There is little space. Washing and showering must be registered， hot water is not all the time available. At 11 p. m.， the light is switched off.
A few years later she has completed her Bachelor and begins a Master’s study. This time， she lives with three other female students for years in one room for four. With almost all of these former room-mates she will keep contact even as a professional. With some male students， too， friendships have developed that will last for decades.
Sun and Chu， the engineers， have known each other since middle school days. They are studying in different cities， working hard and determined， both had no time (or no eye？) for any serious love affair. When they later meet again， the two get closer and after certain considerations， discussions and musings agree to get married. Both have neither a home nor a job. Engineer Sun does not write applications， she visits some job-fairs at her university.
An electronics company in ShenZhen recruits her， she gets a four-year contract although her education is much different from what this job requires. First， she moves alone to ShenZhen to get acquainted with her new profession from scratch. At the same time her husband is looking for a job， after several months he also moves to ShenZhen because he finds a job with HuaWei (华为)， a then largely unknown emerging company that is providing hardware and software for telecommunications networks. Today it is ranked second or third in the world.
The telecommunications company HuaWei is a prime example of the dramatic changes that the former fishing village of ShenZhen has witnessed within the recent 30 years. In 1979 a decision was made to establish in ShenZhen one of the four special economic zones of the Pearl River Delta in the province of GuangDong (or Canton). Deng XiaoPing thus intended to reform China’s economy， which later proved to be successful. August 26， 1980， Deng XiaoPing opened this first economic zone in ShenZhen， this is now considered the birthday of this city. While I am writing this book ShenZhen celebrates its 30th birthday， and Deng XiaoPing would now be 106 years old.
Out of a “village” of about 30，000 inhabitants (along with a few neighbouring villages perhaps 100，000 inhabitants)， who all lived mainly on fishing there， developed within this extremely short time a megalopolis of about 15 million inhabitants. Many millions of today’s residents are not registered， that is why they are not counted officially. Yet they live here.
Within the first decades， factories of cheap goods such as clothing， shoes and toys moved from nearby HongKong， which they considered too narrow and too expensive to ShenZhen. Soon， however， the cheap production relocated on to DongGuan and further inland while in ShenZhen， electronics industry sprouted.
With modern high-tech companies ShenZhen attracts the best trained， ardent and ambitious young people. They want to work with HuaWei (华为)， ZTE (中兴， ZhongXing)， Tencent， IBM， HonHai (鸿海， Foxconn)， the automobile
manufacturer BYD， in software companies and dynamic start-ups， as well in the financial industry and in the vast logistics area at the port which has become the fourth-largest in the world， as well in the building construction industry and in numerous service companies that advertise， print， customise， consult， sell – or as lawyers， accountants， management consultants， all of which are in demand by the industry.
And on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the birth of ShenZhen， the automobile company ChangAn， based in ChongQing， announced to build a car factory in ShenZhen.